


Strange at Ecbatan

by ancientreader



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5194106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/pseuds/ancientreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Evening soon draws in": As a fortune cookie, it at least has the virtue of always being true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange at Ecbatan

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly a belated Halloween fic. I'm not sure, myself.

“Well, that’s a rubbish fortune.” _Evening soon draws in._ “Evening has bloody _drawn_ in. What is it, eleven at night?”

“Something like that,” Sherlock replies. “Nevertheless, the statement remains true.”

John has to concede the point: especially in a London December, the coming evening is never distant, not even from the night before. “I knew a bloke once, got the fortune ‘You are doomed to happiness in marriage.’” It had seemed funny at the time. “What’s yours?”

“Something stupid. I’ve already forgotten it.”

“Look at that,” John says. While they ate, the few flakes that have been coming down all day have transmogrified themselves into a proper storm. In fact, now that he looks around, he finds that everyone else has left the restaurant; even the staff are out of sight. They must be in back closing down the kitchen. Sherlock leaves fifty pounds on the counter, which has to be twenty more than their meal cost, but it was nice of Mrs. Chun not to shoo them out.

Not a car to be seen on the Marylebone Road. You would think snow was unheard-of in London, the way the city closes in on itself as soon as an inch or two has stuck. Sherlock’s shoes will be ruined ...

Visibility is terrible, actually. “Best hold on,” Sherlock says, as if coming to the same realization at the same moment; he extends his hand. 

John takes it. “At least no one’s in pursuit.”

“Mm.”

They feel their way through the pelting snow and the dark, carefully, for so long that John begins to wonder whether they’ve missed the turning. When at last they reach Baker Street, he fumbles for his key, but Sherlock is already pushing the door open. It must have been unlocked. The stairwell is quiet and there’s no light from under Mrs. Hudson’s door. “Should we check on her?” John asks, thinking of the open street door.

Sherlock looks at him with an expression John doesn’t understand. “It’s quite late, John. Anyway, she’s fine now.”

All right then; if anything were amiss, Sherlock would have deduced it, surely. 

Trudging through the dark and the snow has tired John more than he would have expected; the seventeen steps seem to extend a great distance above him and to take ages to climb. Sherlock’s well ahead, of course; it was ever so.

The flat is familiar — of course it is; he lives here — and warm. His chair here was always the most comfortable he had sat in anywhere.

Sherlock is standing in the middle of the living room, again looking at John with that uninterpretable expression.

It’s a soft look, John realizes. Like the look Sherlock wore when he played at John’s wedding, or when —

That was so long ago. 

And how long has he been standing, lost in thought? Meanwhile Sherlock has drawn the curtains over all the windows. He turns to John and seems to hesitate.

“We can dance now,” he finally says. Music is playing — a violin alone, nothing John recognizes. It yearns.

Yes, Sherlock’s right: they can dance now. It used to be that they couldn’t, for some reason John can no longer bring to mind.

When had he taken his jacket off?

That doesn’t matter, any more than it matters why he was once so certain that this was impossible.

The music is playing for them. _Evening soon draws in._ John steps into Sherlock’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Archibald MacLeish's ["You, Andrew Marvell,"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171745) which we might call a fanpoem of Andrew Marvell's ["To His Coy Mistress."](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173954)
> 
> A friend of mine actually got the fortune "You are doomed to happiness in marriage."
> 
> [TSylvestris](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TSylvestris/profile), having found this in her email at eight in the evening, replied within half an hour not only being helpful in general but also, specifically, and to my undying gratitude, sparing me an inadvertent shout-out to Game of Thrones.


End file.
